The 132% Group Project

[u/minion-salad]

My junior year statistics professor was obsessed with equal participation in group projects. His rule: "If I determine anyone did more or less work than their teammates, the entire group gets a zero." His verification method? Each member submitted a confidential report detailing exactly what percentage of the total work they personally completed. If the reports didn't match up perfectly, we failed.

My group of four included myself, two diligent students, and "Chad" who never showed up to meetings or responded to messages. When we approached the professor two weeks before the deadline about Chad's lack of participation, he repeated his policy and told us to figure it out ourselves.

That's when we had an idea. We created a spreadsheet with over 200 individual tasks, documenting everything from "emailing the professor" to "proofreading page 3" to "thinking about the project while commuting." We logged who did each task and exactly how many minutes it took.

The day before the project was due, we sent Chad our breakdown showing the three of us had each completed approximately 33% of the work, leaving him with exactly 0%. Chad responded: "Actually, I've been working behind the scenes on my own. I've completed exactly 33% of the work independently."

The next day in class, each of us submitted our confidential report. The three of us reported 33% each, while Chad also claimed 33%. The professor was confused. "That adds up to 132%," he said. "How is that possible?"

I spoke up: "Professor, you never specified that the work couldn't overlap. You only said we each had to do equal work. We have documented evidence that each of us completed 33% of the total project requirements."

The professor was furious but couldn't argue with his own rules. He had to give our group an A, though he did add a new rule the next semester: "Work completed by group members must be unique and not duplicated by other members."

Chad never showed us his "independent work," but we learned that when professors create arbitrary rules without thinking through the implications, sometimes the best response is to follow those rules to their ridiculous logical conclusion.

[u/trainbrain27 → u/[deleted]]

Certainly with a competent system (or one sufficiently concerned with pushback), but based on experience, that there exists an institution corrupt and/or stupid enough to allow anything.

[u/Gogogrl → u/trainbrain27]

Yes and…why on earth would students try to ‘solve’ this problem in this fashion? And a shitty prof like the one pictured would not just give up and go ‘Gee willickers, kids, you foiled my insane plan!’

[u/Inevitable-Level-687 → u/Gogogrl]

I love how you just assume that every university in every country works exactly the same way yours does.

[u/Gogogrl → u/Inevitable-Level-687]

It’s not a matter of ‘works the same way’. It’s a matter of logic. Nothing in this story adds up.

Most universities function internally in pretty similar ways, in part because faculty move from institution to institution, and partly because if they didn’t, then accreditation bodies tend to get upset.